I’m back!!!! I’m sorry that I have been missing in action and haven’t written in weeks. I didn’t know it, but I needed a short break. Yesterday was my one year anniversary of when I started this blog and I wrote everyday for months, then couple times a week, then once a week… It has been a journey of discovery but this last week, in California, I went on a journey of awakening. This next year of blog posts will relect that. Once I reached middle school age, I became very aware of myself, my surroundings, my actions, and the effect the world was having on me. I’ve always had a diary, even when I was in elementary school, and writing always helped me analyze situations and my place in them. As I grew older, I searched for knowledge and understanding through my experiences and then of course, found my birth family. The course my life took at that point was full of unexpected drops, turns, and ascents and I soaked it all in every step of the way. I then decided to write a book based on my life to tell the world how all this knowledge enriched me and made me into the person I was at that time. I also began this blog to help other adoptees find that same enrichment and understanding… and compassion. While I hope that I did do that for other adoptees, at the same time it morphed into this journey of discovery for me personally. I discovered that there are so many different facets and faces to the emotional trauma that is adoption both on the adoptee and birth family side. I glided through my life with some emotional conflict due to being adopted but I had no idea of the magnitude of the ripple effect caused by adoption. I am a very empathetic person and always want to be fair in my statements and thoughts to be sure I cover all possible views from all possible sides. Doing so has broadened my understanding of what an adoptee goes through but more than that I now know there is so much more to us than this. I’ve said it before but now I know more than ever no ideal is absolute, no right or wrong, no end to the intricacies of our emotional state. It is what it is and our best hope in this life is to be aware and discover what it means to each of us. That is where I am at, at the end of this journey of discovery and the beginning of the next part of my being – awareness. I’ve listened to you all, those that would talk, and I’ve explored every one of those emotional facets and tried to determine what is healthy and what is not and how do we overcome it to be happy. I traveled to California with my daughter last week. I met a person who awakened my soul to the true past and a path to the future. I was able to face head-on the circumstances surrounding my adoption and felt the pain that my biological grandmother and mother felt by relinquishing me but learned that my soul came blazing into this life on a mission to find unconditional love…. and I did. I was one of the lucky ones, I know this. I am awakened by accepting the fact that my biological grandmother did what she thought was best, and it was. I am awakened by the fact that my birth mother cried many, many tears while pregnant with me, and most importantly, I am awakened by the fact that I came here to be loved so blindly and so fiercely that I was willing to throw myself out to the world in hopes that would happen. That is why I am here….. to find unconditional love. We each come here with a purpose and it can be as simple, but powerful, as that. If you awaken yourself to the past, you will find your purpose here that will give you a path to go on, a reason for living, a goal to achieve, motivation to be, just be, and maybe enlighten others along the way. We live our lives in phases, I’ve lived mine in the phases of awareness and discovery, now this next phase will be my awakening. It is with this frame of mind and focus that I continue on in the next year of my blog to advance myself and hopefully help some of you heal. I hope that I hear more from you whether you think I’m crazy or sane, I want to hear from you your own stories. Thank you for continuing on this journey with me, we will all learn together!